Integration of current weather systems for NextGen Aviation Weather

Integration and Demonstration of Current Weather Systems for NextGen Aviation Weather

     The primary goal of the Next Generation (NextGen) Air Transportation System (NGATS) is to address the needs of the United States aviation industry, including the increasing demand for air traffic services to provide accurate, timely weather information at the temporal and spatial scales required by aviation decision makers.  NextGen is an umbrella term for the ongoing, wide-ranging transformation of the United States' national airspace system (NAS). At its most basic level, NextGen represents an evolution from a ground-based system of air traffic control to a satellite-based system of air traffic management.  This evolution is vital to meeting future demand and avoiding gridlock in the sky and at our nation's airports.

      This paper describes recent work done using systems that support NWS and DoD NextGen Aviation Weather Services.  It will be of interest to stakeholders interested in sharing weather information using a modern SOA framework for shared situational awareness.  The systems involved include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Weather Service (NWS) Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System II (AWIPS II) and DoD Joint Environmental Toolkit that were used to provide SWIM-enabled NextGen weather information publications to several consuming Command and Control applications.

     The material covered in this paper describes a working infrastructure for the dissemination of weather and related information.  These data can be made available to systems connected via the FAA's System Wide Information Management (SWIM) Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) and to DoD systems connected to the Distributed Common Ground System Integration Backbone (DIB) used by several communities connected to the DoD Global Information Grid (GIG). All services developed are compliant with the FAA's architectural framework for the 4-D Weather Cube. The FAA's conceptual architecture for the Weather Cube is illustrated in Figure 1.^[1] 

 The following list summarizes the capabilities provided for the demonstrations. 

·        Use of OGC GIS services to provide access to JET, AWIPS II and CWIS services-based products via a web interface. 

·        Use of metadata framework as a source of SWIM weather services conveyed to the 4D Weather Cube and Command and Control (C2) users.

·        ITWS product access via a SWIM service adapter capable of interfacing with the ITWS and STARS systems. 

·        Integration with C2 systems based upon capabilities delivered by the BCS-F which is currently operational within the DoD.

·        Deliver FAA SWIM services, with AWIPS II/JET weather data/products published to provide atmospheric Environmental Intelligence capabilities.

Figure 1. 4-D Weather Cube Conceptual Architecture.

Keywords: NextGen Weather, Aviation, Prediction, Command and Control, Situational Awareness, Decision Support

---

[1] The illustration is derived from an FAA NextGen Network Enabled Weather Program presentation from May 2010.